WHITTIER – It’s like a school within a school, says Rio Hondo College graduate Ramon Quintero – a smaller group of motivated students who get extra attention to help them transfer to four-year universities and complete their education.

And as one of dozens of Honors Transfer Program students from Rio Hondo who are now headed to prestigious UC campuses for the fall semester, Quintero says the program played an invaluable part in his being accepted to UC Berkeley.

“I was never thinking Berkeley until I was in the Honors Transfer Program,” said Quintero, 30, of South Whittier, who takes off for Northern California in a couple of weeks.

“I was just trying to pass my classes,” he said. “But just being in the program allowed me to have access to information that most people don’t get.

“They take care of you,” he said, “so it was a really good thing for me to do.”

But Quintero isn’t the only Honors Transfer student headed for a prestigious UC school – the program also has a 92 percent acceptance rate at UCLA, which helped the 20,000-student Rio Hondo College start up its program in the late 1990s.

In total, 41 Rio Hondo graduates are headed for UCLA this fall, officials said – and more than half of those were in the Honors Transfer Program.

But it also has transfer agreements with Cal State schools, Chapman University, Loyola Marymount and Cal Poly Pomona, even though the majority of honors students apply to UCLA for transfer.

“The rewards are incredible,” Green said. “(There are) smaller class sizes, with few exceptions, a cohort of honors students available for study partners, specialized counseling services and a huge increase in the chances of being accepted to the university of their dreams.”

To participate in the Honors Transfer Program, new students must have a 3.2 high school grade-point average and enroll in English 101 in their first semester.

Continuing students must have earned an A or B in English 101 or 201, and take at least 12 units and one honors course each semester.

The Honors Transfer Program worked for Jude Sebastian, 18, who was in Rio Hondo’s dual enrollment program and earned two associate’s degrees while getting his high school diploma. Now, he’s among the 41 Rio students headed for UCLA.

“The honors program is a wonderful program,” Sebastian said. “The classes help prepare you for what is to come. The honors program (at) Rio does the job, and quite efficiently.”

And, Quintero says, “If I did it – someone with a 2.6 high-school GPA who dropped out of college while raising a child – then anyone can.”

For information, call the college at (562) 692-0921 or visit www.riohondo.edu/honors